2024-02-26
Before I begin: I'm sorry if this comes off as scattered and hard to follow, I wrote this mostly as a continuous unfiltered stream straight out of my head and into a markdown file.
This blog was originally intended to write about just technology, however I've decided that well.. It's my blog. And I get to pick what I write for it. So I've decided to write about what ultimately got me to actually finish and publish the first post on this blog, which is this one.
My entire life I've struggled with dealing with my own self worth and skill level. If you know me from beyond this blog you probably know it's been a project many many months in the making, despite its simplicity, and that is simply because of my lack of determination and belief in my abilities to actually complete the project.
From having a talk with a therapist once a week I've come to realize a few things that really put things into perspective, and got me to accept that, even if I don't know much now, I still have a long journey and plenty of potential ahead of me.
I never got much love or attention growing up. I used to be a very inventive and smart child, going as far as to be put in the "special class" for "gifted children" (paraphrasing heavily), where I did nothing but solve basic logic puzzles and play stuff like Twister for some reason. I even remember bringing my Xbox 360 one day.
But, everything I managed to make in my formative years before I managed to get a friend group online was met with cold indifference. One particular example is lodged in my memory, probably forever: I once made a mashup song, and one I remember being very fond of. One day I decided to play it to my parents, I think I must have been 14 at the time, looking for some sort of validation. I was met with them being distracted on their phones instead of actually listening, and when I asked what they thought, all I got was "It's pretty neat. Have you washed the dishes yet?"
Nothing I made ever got a reaction from anyone, and I've come to the conclusion after much, much hardship and self reflection and thought, that this is the reason I've developed into never being satisfied with anything I've ever made. No matter how much I obsessed over every little detail I always thought it wasn't good enough, it wouldn't impress anyone, and how I was "underperforming".
That last one particularly is a real stickler. Being terminally online like myself means I'm constantly involved in communities where people do incredible things. At the time of writing I recently joined one full of amazing folk from all kinds of fields that interest me, from art, to 3D modelling and animation, electronics, programming, IT and sysadmin, the works. This turned out to be a pretty big double edged sword for me, though:
On one hand I never felt more home anywhere in my life. I connected with a lot of these people almost immediately, we shared a lot of the same interests, and we got along great. On the other... I couldn't stop my mind from comparing myself to them.
They were many very accomplished individuals in positions I could have only dreamed of being in... and it made me think poorly of myself. How I was "underperforming". I should know these things. I shouldn't be struggling to learn. Look at how great they are and how much you suck at all of it.
Even something as seemingly silly and inconsequential as, a video game. A TF2 match with friends. I'd be at the bottom half of the scoreboard, look at my over 2200 hours in the game, and bash myself over how I "should be doing better than this".
It's made me spiral many many times into a deep depression. I was often found crying sitting on the floor and isolating myself for a while because I just didn't know what else to do.
It especially hurt when these feelings of inferiority and inadequacy led to me believing that I was unwanted, how I wasn't good enough to be friends with these people.
This group enjoys being in VR meetups a lot and I'd find myself sitting in a corner, alone, with nobody to talk to, afraid that if I tried to join a conversation I'd be found annoying and inconvenient, like I wasn't "worthy" of being there, and people wouldn't tell me to go away just out of courtesy. Of course in retrospect, it's more of a "well, I have my close knit friend group that I usually chat with, but if you want to join that's okay since it's literally a social platform that's what we're here for", but at the time I was (and to be honest, I still am a bit) terrified of interrupting and being just unpleasant to be around.
I once ended up sitting on the floor and just crying. My brain just kind of shut down at that point, I didn't really care what was happening around me, I just shut myself in. I'm forever grateful to the ones who heard me and came to my aid and comforted me in that situation. (you know who you are 🧡)
Once I started going to therapy I slowly realized that my skills don't define my worth as a person. It was a long and arduous process, but eventually I managed, mostly, to separate what I can do from who I am. I still get some relapses but I've been better about it for the past little while. I also learned to be more trusting with people, especially with friends, when it comes to participating in something. I learned to not automatically assume I'm annoying and instead, I actively try to look for conversations to butt into, "being annoying" be damned.
It was admittedly a kind of "rip the band-aid off" solution but it managed to really get it across to my stupid noggin that people aren't out to get me like that. If I'm not wanted at a conversation, people will usually speak up and ask me kindly to go elsewhere, and of course that's okay.
Being how we (mostly) hang out in Resonite, a lot of the chat can be about highly technical topics I don't understand. Unfortunately, being surrounded by chat I didn't understand and felt like I'd be annoying asking literally anything about what was going on, tended to make me spiral into a pit of self hatred. But after making that distinction in my head between my self worth and my skills, I finally learned to not feel bad but instead listen in awe at the incredible things they're building, and politely ask for help if something caught my attention and I wanted to know more.
It's been rough. Hell, it's still rough. I'm still dealing with it, slowly improving at being more kind to myself. It's an ongoing battle and I've never been more hopeful that I might actually be able to win it. If you're going through something similar, know this: At many points I was completely hopeless. I thought I was doomed to suffer forever. And don't be. Things change. Things will get better. Keep your head up.
I hope to get to more tech focused, technical topics soon. I have a few doozies lined up, surrounding virtualization, an area I'm quite experienced in. But I just needed to get this out of my chest.
I don't really know why I decided to write for this, really. Odds are this blog won't be seen by many people, but it feels good putting my experiences on a hard medium. Whether it's as a sort of pseudo-diary, or just having a presence on the internet, finally getting around to writing these posts has brought me a joy I didn't expect.
Thank you for your attention. More posts coming eventually.
Comments
Add a comment
Your IP address will be saved alongside your comment, for anti-spam purposes.